Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Deby, of Natural Mystic Soap sent me a Cocoa Butter Chocolate Swirl soap bar a few months ago and I am only now getting to it- I'm sorry! It was a nicely packaged bar (an example is shown below) with the sides open.I could smell it as soon as I unwrapped it. The swirls of chocolate peeked out from under the soap wrap and called to me, "You there, come smell my chocolate-y self!" When soaps call to me, I must not ignore, for my senses get all fired up and eager, like a puppy with a tail that moves the body.

The bar was lightly scented and smelled like cream and chocolate. The bar was a good size and was really pretty with dark brown chocolate swirls throughout a cream colored bar. I went to the tub for a spin. The soap lathered quickly, had nice slip and worked beautifully on my skin. The shaving test was a success with no Psycho shower scenario. That is a key test. If it doesn't irritate my skin, it gets an E.C. for extra credit.

They have a cool offering on their website: Happy Endings (which is NOT what you think!) They take bits and pieces from the ends of their soap loaves and offer them for purchase. You get 5-6 ounces of various available soap bits (their choice) for only $4.00. This way, if you don't know what you want, you can try out a bunch of scents! Go check them out!

Monday, February 25, 2008

Sherrie, ofBirch Bark Soap, has graciously offered her tutorial on cold process soap making for any of you who want to start soap making and could use the advice from a seasoned soaper. I wrote about Birch Bark's Chocolate Peppermint soap here, which was lovely! I urge you to check outher blogas well. Her husband has such photographic talent and creates a peaceful mood with Sherrie's soaps (and now soap making). Here is her tutorial copied verbatim:

Joanna from The Soap Bar asked me if I would be willing to create a cold process soapmaking tutorial to share, and I’m happy to oblige! Thanks to my husband for taking the photos.

Safety first: When making soap from scratch, you need to use lye - it’s not optional. It’s available in the plumbing section at your local hardware store (it’s used to clean drains, I understand.) When mixed with water, lye produces noxious fumes, and if even the tiniest bit gets on your skin, in your eyes, etc., it can cause serious burns. Store it in a safe place, far from children and pets, and always wear safety glasses and gloves when using it. Always add your lye to your water or other liquid, to avoid splashing. Seriously, folks - this stuff is scary. Please be very, very careful, and make sure that your liquids are cool before adding lye - it can cause a volcano if the liquids are hot, and this is extremely dangerous for you and your furniture. It’s a good idea to mix it outside, if that’s possible. Vinegar neutralizes lye, and for that reason, keep a spray bottle of plain white vinegar handy while soapmaking. You will use this to spray your tools during clean-up.

Tools: Before beginning, make sure you have all of your ingredients for your recipe and tools exclusively for soapmaking handy, including safety glasses, gloves, two glass thermometers, two spatulas (silicone works well), containers for your oils and one for your lye mixture, an accurate scale, molds, and a stick blender. Prepare your molds by greasing them in one way or another. I spray a light mist of olive oil on my molds.

Weigh your lye and water in separate containers. I prefer to use a large glass jar (rather than plastic) for mixing my lye. Slowly add your lye crystals to your water, while stirring gently. The mixture will be cloudy at first, and will get very, very hot. Carefully place a glass thermometer in your lye jar, and set it aside to cool. I happened to have lots of snow outside, so I placed my jar in a pile of snow to lower the temperature quickly (more on that in a second.) Place any lye-tainted tools you’re finished with in an empty sink.

Next, weigh your solid oils. An accurate scale is a must! The solid oils will then need to be melted. This can either be done on the stovetop or in the microwave.

I most often melt my solid oils using the microwave, and add my liquid oils to the melted solid ones afterward, slowly stirring with a spatula. This usually brings the oils down to a good temperature for blending with the lye mixture. (Note: if you’re using beeswax in your soap, the stovetop seems to be most consistent - melt all of your oils (liquid and solid) in there together.)

Check the temperature of your oils and lye mixture. Your recipe should indicate the ideal temperatures for your lye mixture and oils to be when mixed.

When they have reached that temperature (it’s often around 100 degrees fahrenheit) you will pour your lye mixture slowly (in a drizzle) into your oils, while stick blending. I usually stir with the stick blender (not blending, just using it as a stirring utensil) at first, and blend for a minute here and there as I’m adding the lye.

After you’ve added all of the lye mixture, blend until the soap “traces”. When the blender is lifted up, some soap will leave trails on the surface. It should look something like pudding.

At this point, add any botanicals, essential or fragrance oils, colour, etc., according to your recipe. Stir by hand until incorporated, and pour into prepared molds. Before cleaning up and washing, spray all of your containers and tools with vinegar to neutralize any active lye.

Let the soap set in a warm place for 24-48 hours. Unmold, and cut into bars. If bars need to be trimmed, it is best to wait a couple of days until the soap is a bit firmer. Then, let cure for a couple of weeks for the bars to dry and become firm. This will also make them last longer. Some people suggest insulating the soap as it sets, but with these molds, I don’t find it necessary. Happy soaping!

That was very informative tutorial with artful photographs documenting the process. If you want to see the identical tutorial, she has it up on her blog. Thank you Sherrie and Adam! xo Joanna

Saturday, February 23, 2008

I don't know how I found Savonara Handmade Soaps, but I am glad I did. I was poking around last night on line and...What a pot of gold I fell into! These are absolutely stunning! Sher is the soap maker and has an Etsy shop and a blog which is a very interesting read.

The soaps shown are:The swirls AND stripes in the pink grapefruit soap are so perfectly swirled and colored, the Lavender one with the chocolate brown sphere in the center reminds me of a rising moon in another world. The mosaic soap looks impossible to make. This one must have taken patience beyond belief. In Sher's blog, she writes,"Next, a soap that is truly one of a kind - yep, there's just one bar. Like mosaic tiles, each piece in the design is placed by hand to create a unique pattern." I might be completely off, but it looks like the face of it is melt and pour glycerin soap with the carefully placed embeds and then the cold process soap poured on top of that. What do you think? The last one is a colorful festival called Island Splash where the colors work well together. These soaps are so much fun, I wish I could learn a thing or two from Sher. If these smell and work as good as they look, I'll be hooked.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Birch Barkhandmade soaps are lovely. Sherrie, Birch Bark's creator, sent me a few bars to try. Each one of them was wrapped up in a stamped natural cotton bag tied with twine, just like the photo. This is the first time I have seen this presentation in person. It is pure, unique and almost rustic, which adds to the sense of the pure and natural approach she takes with her soaps. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband (great photographer, btw!) and makes soaps at home.

I had the pleasure to try her Chocolate Peppermint soap with cocoa butter which was smooth as ever and smelled like a York's Peppermint Pattie. It wasn't overpowering, but gentle on the nose and perfectly scented. This soap felt smooth and had great slip with zero drag, and created bubbly foam immediately, which I loved. I do like the thick frothy suds that come alive quickly like that.

Here is the description they have on Etsy: "This is the richest soap we could come up with! Full of moisturizing cocoa butter, along with brewed chocolate mint tea and real cream, it is suitable for mature and/or dry skin. Essential oil of peppermint along with cocoa butter give this a delicious, mild chocolate-y mint fragrance. This makes an excellent shaving soap because of its intense moisturizing and fluffy lather."

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

As I mentioned in my last post, Elizabeth, of Hot Process Soap Notes by gracefruit, is an avid soapmaker residing in rural Scotland who has shared her personal photographic journey of hot process soapmaking on her blog. Here is her tutorial she has generously allowed me to copy and share with you for you.

Here are a few pictures to show what happens when I make CPHP. Your results may vary, though!

Please note that this tutorial is designed for those already familiar with cold process soap making.

Melt oils and mix up lye solution as you would with CP. You don’t have to worry about controlling the temperatures. Add the lye solution to the oils as soon as you’re confident the lye is completely dissolved. You can stick blend them together right in the crock pot:

After you’ve reached a nice, thick trace, put the lid on, check the crock pot is set to low, and entertain yourself for about a half an hour. Obsessive folk like me might return to the pot every five to ten minutes for a peek, but there probably won’t be much happening. After about thirty minutes (more or less, depending on your crock pot’s temperature), the edges will begin to gel:

Check back in about ten minutes and the gel will have spread from the edges toward the centre. I usually refer to this as ‘raw soap island surrounded by a gel ocean’. Unfortunately, on the day I decide to take photographs, we have ‘raw soap island being overrun by a gel tsunami’:

Five minutes later, raw soap island is gone:

It is at this time I remove the pot from the heat source and give a quick stir just to be sure the gel is complete. If it isn’t, you’ll find a chunk of lighter-coloured raw soap floating in the gel. If you still have raw soap, pop it back in the heat source and cook for another five to ten minutes. This one has completely gelled:

Now you can zap test the soap by taking a little bit out and rubbing it between your fingers to help it cool. It should feel waxy. Once the soap has cooled, lightly tap your tongue with it. If you get a sensation that feels like a 9-V battery, you have active lye in your soap and will need to cook it some more. If not, you can move on to the next step.

When making HP, I add my additives at the end of the cook to avoid having the kitchen smell like the monkey cage at the zoo. Any milks, honey, fruit or veggie purees, etc should go in after the cook. Oils and butters added after the cook will not be saponified, so you get all of their benefits. Today I’m superfatting with a bit of jojoba:

And now a lovely oakmoss fragrance goes in:

While you weren’t looking, I removed a cup or so of soap from the pot and dyed it green. This has been added back to the soap:

And lightly stirred to make an in-the-pot swirl:

And then spooned into the molds to cool:

When the soap has cooled, turn it out and you’re done!

Remember that any HP needs to cure for at least one week, preferably two. It’ll get harder and milder in this time.

Elizabeth is the blog owner/author of the very interesting and informative blog that I read every week: Hot Process Soap Notes By gracefruit. She lives in rural Scotland and is a hot process soapmaker. Almost every photo she takes reminds me of a peaceful place.

I came across these photos on her blog of her beautiful soap blocks with gorgeous embeds and needed to share them with you. Gracefully, Elizabeth agreed that I could share her photos. Please click on them for a bigger, closer look!

These soaps were made with offcuts and embeds. The one on the left is scented with rose, and the one of the right is amberwood. I absolutely love the blue-green colors she used in the amberwood block.

gracefruit: I would love to share a hot process tutorial with photos if you'd like to make one!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Great sweet/fruity/floral scented melange. Super suds, great slip and wild swirls. This is a large hunk of soap, which we loved. My husband called it the "bowling ball one", because of its size and swirliness. We both kept coming back to this bar.

(For some reason, their site is down. Maybe all the traffic from being the winner has made the server go nuts. Their phone number is 818-487-9805 and the website address is burntmillcrafts.com for when the server comes back to life.)

It did smell cupcake-y but not overwhelmingly so. Most cake/candy smelling soaps have a tendency to be chemically smelling and overwhelming. This one was a nice hard bar, cleaned off nicely and has a very cute look.

Has unique feel, sort of smooth and creamy, foams pretty well, slip has some drag, but felt super soothing. In addition to the Dead Sea Mud, it contained pure essential oils of Palmarosa, bergamot, geranium, Bulgarian lavender, and Guaiacwood and honey. This would be a great facial soap. Loved the way it made my skin feel.

So there you go. It was a hard soapy journey, but someone had to do it- ;)We are so clean and squeaky you could smell us a mile away!

The Yummiest Soap Contest winner will be announced today. Crystal, of Cute Indie Finds and I are basically in agreement with the soaps. I'd like to thank everyone who sent in their soap entries. They were all lovely!

You can read the Yummiest Soap Contest rules posted here and here. The winner will be announced by the end of today. Thanks!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Went back up to Orlando for some crazy two day excursion with the family and had the worst time with the soap provided at the hotel. I still haven't learned my lesson with toiletries and traveling. I always bring way too many Q-tips, makeup items and underwear, but stuff like soap, shampoo and conditioner, I always skip taking it to reduce the amount of bulk in the suitcase. You know, I have seen those tiny trial sized shampoos, conditioners, baby powder....etc at the drug store, but never really need them when I notice them. Packing a full sized shampoo seems overkill and such a nightmarish potential mess I'd like to completely avoid when I travel. Or ever for that matter.

Ok. SO the soap was round and white, of course. No personality like the ones I've been reviewing. (Now I know how lucky I am to have such gorgeous and effective bars in my home!) It wasn't just the looks. This soap has caused me to be itchy from the knee down to my feet. Some of you may know, but my lower legs have issues with many things. The cold and dryness causes severe itching, which results in me scratching like crazy, then the welts begin to swell and become more itchy, and so on. My day old stubble does the same thing. This is why I absolutely MUST shave my legs every day until my laser treatments for my legs actually begin eliminating all the hair. Yes, it is that bad.

The soap did the same thing! My legs have been itchy since I showered at the hotel on Sunday night. Since I've been home, my Shea Butter and Mama Bomb are the only things giving me some relief from the itchiness.

I am a huge supporter of handmade soap, if you haven't gotten that from reading this blog. I urge you to suggest to your hotel the next time you stay at one, to take the next step and supply handmade small bars. What a difference to use a bar with shea butter or cocoa butter when you are feeling dry! And how nice is it to use a bar that isn't drying?

Don't forget to travel with a bit of soap and some travel shampoo. Red legs and frizzy hair. Bad combo for any human. I'll go through the photos soon and see if I can share any bad hair ones with you... :) I'm sure there are plenty!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

I received a couple of soaps from Micky Byrd a month or two ago and I have only just tried them. Now they sent a soap called Jelly Bean and Almond Decadence soap, neither of which are available anymore on the website, but these are the ones I am reviewing today.

I think Micky Byrd's soaps are really beautiful and I quite like their paper soap wraps: Simple and designed well with the flower on the ends.

Into the shower for Jelly Bean and me. Very cute with purple soap embeds and soothing cream colored main soap. The look of it reminded me of jelly beans and candy. The smell was not sweet, however. It had a limey, sharp scent that I was confused by. Typically the name of soaps play off of the scent, but in this case, maybe just the looks. The soap was very sudsy right away - cleaned me sudsrifically but it took a long time to rid my hands of that soapy residue feel, almost like I couldn't get the soap to want to leave me. My whole body didn't feel slick at all, but my hands took a while to clean off. The shave test was wonderful. Because of the slickness, it had quite a nice "slip" with the razor and I shaved very swiftly with no nicks. Yay!

The second bar was similar in that it was foamy and soapy good, but left that slickness I just explained. The scent? Almond Decadence is not how I would describe this one. it looked almondy and richly sweet with calendula petals on top and along the side, but it smelled very much like soap with a hint of patchouli and a touch of Litsea Cubiba.

Overall, I think Micky Byrd makes nice soap, but I wish the names matched the scents a little more.

Isn't this pretty? It is clary sweet on their website. Nice layering in the center and adorned with calendula! Thank you, Viola for sending me these lovelies!!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Patounis has been hand making olive oil soap by the traditional stamped method for over 100 years, and is one of the very few factories left in the world. You can visit and see the process, and also buy the products.

A traditional, functioning, and accessible olive oil soap factory is on the Ionian island of Corfu. Just off the main square of the "new town" (five minutes walk from the old town), it has a showroom housing a laboratory, together with displays of soap which is available for purchase. Unfortunately, no factory tours are available as the small number of staff who work at the factory are too involved in the manufacturing process.

The main types of soaps are:

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"Green soap" made from crude (unprocessed) olive pomice oil. The latter is obtained by extraction from the ground flesh and pits of the olives after pressing. It contains olive chlorophyll; hence the green colour of the soap when "fresh". This green colour fades as the soap dries and matures. The "green soap" is used mainly for household chores (especially clothes). It also had a good reputation for its disinfecting and healing properties on skin infections, allergies, bed sores, and strained muscles.

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"Asper green soap", which is a stronger formula of the "green soap". It has free alkali in its mass (increased pH). This makes it effective for clothes washing.

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"White olive - palm kernel soap" , which is made from pure Virgin olive oil (lampante grade). Edible palm kernel oil is added during the manufacturing process. This soap is used as a gentle personal cleanser ( face and body). It lathers well.

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"White olive oil soap" is as the white soap above, without the palm kernel oil. It has limited lathering ability and it is recommended that it be used with soft water.

The factory is run by the affable Apostolos Patounis. It has been in the family for 150 years.

The soaps, which are on sale to the general public, are both 100% vegetarian, and 100% biodegradable. loanni Theotokis Street, just off San Rocco Square, on the way to the Green Bus Station. Open shop hours. Tel. 26610 39806

Subscribe, renew, or extend your subscription, and Saponifier magazine will take 30% off the price. This Valentine's Day offer is also valid if you want to give someone a Valentine gift subscription. (hint hint)

The magazine comes out every other month with loads of information for soap and candle makers including regulations, marketing, and establishing industry connections.